April 14, 2014

Glendale Pro Bowl/Casino

The Pro Bowl will be played in the city of Glendale next year, the same year that the Super Bowl will be played there. Also, the city recently voted to soften its opposition to a casino for Glendale. Glendale City Councilman Samuel Chavira will discuss both issues.

Ted Simons: Glendale will play host to both super bowl and the pro bowl next year. Is the city ready for the big event action and is Glendale ready for the possibility of an Indian gaming casino on land adjacent to the city? Glendale councilman Samuel Chavira is here to provide us some answers. Thanks for being here.

Samuel Chavira: Thank you for having me.

Ted Simons: Your thoughts on the pro bowl announcement recently.

Samuel Chavira: I'm very happy that our city fought really hard. It was a competitive bid process. Now we're hosting not only the super bowl but a week before hosting the pro bowl. It's a very unique distinction. There's only been two other cities that have hosted a super bowl and pro bowl. That was Los Angeles in 1967 and Miami in 2010.

Ted Simons: Now, is Glendale ready for both of these event? This is a lot of stuff. I know there are concerns regarding public safety costs and reimbursement, these sorts of things. Where do we stand?

Samuel Chavira: I’ll tell you what. Let me tackle the part about being ready first. We helped expedite not only with mag, Mdot, Arizona Department of Transportation, we just completed a third point of access, Maryland on-ramp to the HOV lane which gives us three points of access to bring people to the sports entertainment district in West Gate. Not only that it also provides ingress, a third point of ingress and egress for public safety. We expedited that just for these big events.

Ted Simons: I know there was a request for $2 million for public safety costs. Where does that sound?

Samuel Chavira: That's our Mega events bill. It's in the state legislature. In fact it's right now in the Senate rules committee. So when it passes there it will go to the Senate, go back to the House of Representatives. Right now that's going to help offset quite a bit of costs for public safety. Because I'm going all the way back to 9/11 and back to the Boston bombing. Ever since then we have had to be ever cognizant of the safety we provide for these events.

Ted Simons: $2 million for both -- is that enough?

Samuel Chavira: Well, this certainly doesn't cover all the costs, but since the state, the valley, benefits from these big events it helps offset the costs. It's a $2 million cap, but it helps us offset our costs quite a bit.

Ted Simons: I have heard rumbling, some from Glendale, some not in Glendale, that the city seems to be left out, especially of the super bowl festivities. That not too happy about that how do you feel?

Samuel Chavira: I tell you what, I think we made it up by bringing in the pro bowl. You're talking about one game that features the best players in all the NFL. The super bowl you have of course the two top teams in the super bowl, but what's really unique about the pro bowl, if you have ever seen it in Hawaii it's a beautiful place to be and I would love to be in Hawaii, but the stands are rarely full. Now we have an opportunity because the current NFL champions are the Seattle Seahawks, so now we have the ability because of proximity to bring people from all the West Coast. They will come here and the really beautiful part is it's a very affordable game.

Ted Simons: But is there anything being done in Glendale to get folks to stay in Glendale or Phoenix or Scottsdale?

Samuel Chavira: Absolutely. You have to look at it from two points of view. One of course you want them to stay in Glendale, but at the end of the day this benefits the whole valley, the entire state. The thing is when people can find out if they want to find out what to do in Glendale they can visit our website, visitglendale.com.

Ted Simons: Last question, how do you quantify the benefit of a super bowl, of a pro bowl? How do you know that this is worth it?

Samuel Chavira: I'll tell you this. One way you know it's worth it is how can you put a price tag? You're going to have the pro bowl which is seen internationally. Super bowl seen internationally. From a marketing standpoint when they show our city hosting those events how can you put a price tag on affording something like that? Now the whole world knows where Glendale is at, where Arizona is at.

Ted Simons: Is everyone on that page or is there a little rumbling going on?

Samuel Chavira: No, absolutely. I think we're all on the same page. The more people we get to come to our city and spend money we all benefit.

Ted Simons: I know not everyone is on the same page regarding the Indian casino. What's happening with the idea of 95th avenue and northern, this turning into an Indian gaming casino.

Samuel Chavira: Well, I want to thank you for that beautiful transition. That beautiful segue.

Ted Simons: Thank you very much.

Samuel Chavira: This is where for four and a half years, five years, it was a nonissue. The city of Glendale is still currently in a lawsuit. But what has changed since then is that we have given formal direction to dialogue. Now we're sitting down, talking for the first time in five years. You know just as anyone else whenever you have dialogue, you find out there may be a person that you have never known, heard about them, when you talk you find out you have the same needs and wants. That's where we're at now.

Ted Simons: Why the change? Why the dialogue, why now?

Samuel Chavira: At the end of the day, this is a great opportunity. Not only will it benefit the city of Glendale it will benefit the whole west valley. We have an opportunity to have dialogue and enter into that dialogue where we can see economic benefit for everyone.

Ted Simons: The Congress has a bill retroactively to April 2103, expires in 2027, representative Franks is sponsoring this bill, specifically blocking Indian casinos in the Phoenix area. Sounds to me what was once a bill Glendale city officials would support, they are not as supportive. What happened here?

Samuel Chavira: Let's be more specific. HR 1410. It was a bill that would prohibit any casinos being built for the next years during the current compact. The reason why myself and my pierce opted to pass a resolution to formally oppose HR 1410 is with current dialogue now if it turns out to be fruitful and we pen a deal, it's the best deal we can pen, if this legislation were to happen to take place it would block that. We would at the end of the day have an empty lot for years.

Ted Simons: Yeah. I know there's concern regarding land use. Again we're talking public safety concerns. Everything from P.D. and fire to sewer lines. Are these parts of the negotiations that you're talking about like how do you get that infrastructure done?

Samuel Chavira: Well, you have to remember, the west valley reserve casino will be in the middle of two entertainment districts, Peoria from the sport complex down to camelback ranch. Right now where they are going to be is the infrastructure is already in place. As far as public safety, as far as tapping into that infrastructure, the nation would pay for any costs incurred. From the first moment they put the shovel blade in the ground to turn the soil they are investing half a billion dollars into that property.

Ted Simons: Water and sewer issues are not much of an issue.

Samuel Chavira: Anything can be settled at the table. That can be settled with an intergovernmental agreement. Hopefully that's what will come out of having dialogue.

Ted Simons: I know the Supreme Court is looking at a Michigan case regarding sovereign Di, but still there are those that say this Gill goes against -- I can't believe I'm asking someone from the city of Glendale to defend the casino. They say this goes against the compact, that this is just not right.

Samuel Chavira: What makes this unique, you have to remember, the nation lost countless acres of land when the pina rock dam was flooded. Because of now having the ability to land swap they can purchase unincorporated land. That's the thing of this issue. They are not buying land inside Glendale proper. It's unincorporated, never annexed by us. They can appeal to the Department of Interior to have it put into trust. Then it becomes reservation.

Ted Simons: Again, we'll see how much that sovereignty applies here. For those in the area, businesses who are not happy about this idea, say they are going to lose business because of a casino being there. You say?

Samuel Chavira: I say that I did what any person in office should do. Talk to the people that are going to be affected by this, and I have. I have spoken to everyone at West Gate, in proximity to the west valley river and my constituents. Overwhelmingly they welcome the casino with open arms.

Ted Simons: Were these folks that were originally skeptical?

Samuel Chavira: I can't say if they were originally skeptical, but I can tell you now with more light shed on the subject, all the court cases won, they are certainly more inclined to lend a listening ear.

Ted Simons: They are more inclined and sounds as though the council, most of the council, seems to be softening its stance. Where do we go from here?

Samuel Chavira: This is where we go. First of all, let's look at the economic impact and the impact on jobs. 6,000 construction jobs the first year. 3,500 permanent jobs thereafter, not only at the casino but from the services, food and beverage industry, linen, the beef they need. This will be incredible for bringing jobs to the west valley.

Ted Simons: Your gut feeling. Will there be a casino on that land?

Samuel Chavira: Well, my gut feeling is -- I'm not willing to roll the dice because I don't gamble. But at the end of the day if you do this is a sure thing.

Ted Simons: All right. If you're going to gamble you may as well go there. Councilman, thank you for being here.

Samuel Chavira: Thanks for having me.

Ted Simons: Tomorrow the state legislative session is in its hectic final days. We'll hear from democratic leaders in the House and Senate. That's Tuesday evening at 5:30 and 10 right here on "Arizona Horizon." That is it for now. I'm Ted Simons. Thank you so much for joining us. You have a great evening.

MAG Demographic Map Viewer

The Maricopa Association of Governments has created several interactive maps that give a variety of key information for the Phoenix Metro area. Businesses and other groups can search individual areas to get information on land use, population density, percentage of minority groups, bikeways and much more. Anubhav Bagley, MAG Information Services Manager, will walk us through the map viewer.

Ted Simons: Good evening. Welcome to "Arizona Horizon." I'm Ted Simons. An administrative law judge today recommended campaign finance allegations against Attorney General Tom Horne and an aide Kathleen winn be dismissed. A judge said a Yavapai County prosecutors failed to show Horne illegally coordinated with and independent expenditure commission to raise money in the waning days of the Attorney General's race. The office can accept, reject or change the judge's recommendation. The Maricopa association of governments has created several interactive demographic maps of the Phoenix metro area allowing for a variety of searches for information ranging from land use and population density to bike ways and much more. Anubhav Bagley is mag's information services manager. Good to have you here, you and your computer to take us through all this. Interactive maps of the Phoenix area. What are we talking about here?

Anubhav Bagley: There's a lot of data sets. As a regional agency we have a ton of data related to demographics, land use and other pieces. We have put tools online anyone can go in, use these tools to ready maps, reports, analysis on their own this helps supporting all kinds of activities, regional planning, economic development, any of those can be done there at your computer using latest data available.

Anubhav Bagley: All right there. We have had these websites on for quite some time. Interestingly we had built a mapping application like this about ten years ago. This was before Google and bing came up. Started becoming so popular. At that time our big thing was we had a lot of data, people calling in for requests, but this was to help us help everybody else go in and create their own maps and analysis.

Ted Simons: Same thing developed here over the years.

Anubhav Bagley: Things have completely changed. We have built these about one and a half, two years ago. A lot of this work primarily done within our agency. We have had a wonderful team that helped build these with the idea that look and feel is like Google and bing maps but on top of just your standard map itself, now you have data to look at if you want to see what types of age groups or what is the type of population, zoom into a particular neighborhood. We have built those tools available online on our website.

Ted Simons: Show us what you got here. Bird's eye view then focus in on certain demographics. Give us an introduction here.

Anubhav Bagley: Sure. So the first map that I have up here is our demographic maps. It's from the census data. What's interesting is the census data has become -- there's a lot of different details and nuances to the data. You have different products that come out on an ongoing basis. This is showing for two Counties, Maricopa and Pinal County total population. Darker are larger numbers of population. The darker orange is about 3,800 to 7,200 population in those block groups. The map system you could zoom in within that thing, just see what the population is. I'm zooming into central Phoenix. This is I-17,101,202. Start looking into the different areas. You can also have imagery behind the data set itself. The other pieces we have about 50-some types of maps. If you look on the left side under maps you get different types of map systems. We can look at total population, age, different age groups, median age, population by race, percent white, black, Asian, Native American, et cetera. Look at population by ethnicity, percent Hispanic, where is that? At the click of a button you have a different map. This showing the Hispanic population. What are the different percentages? Darker colors is higher Hispanic population concentration.

Ted Simons: Some of the outlying areas people may get confused. Some look like there's a higher population density. What does that mean?

Anubhav Bagley: This is really just looking at the numbers itself. The number is dependent on the size of the area. So if the higher area, this area on the left, starts looking at a higher number but the density is lower because the land area is much higher. Number of people may be larger but census data comes in by blog groups.

Ted Simons: I gotcha.

Anubhav Bagley: If it's large they're number is also larger.

Ted Simons: Go back to age if you would. Sun City, Surprise you probably have an older demographic there.

Anubhav Bagley: Right here you can see this is the median age. Median age is average, not the mean, median age, median age for this area. The darker areas, Sun City, Sun City West, Sun Lakes are all darker area of 61 to 83. One of the cool things we recently built, when we build these maps we had done them with the idea if someone asked us to color in everything else we could do that, but Green is not your thing, you can change that.

Ted Simons: There you government.

Anubhav Bagley: You can change the types of categories. You can see how many -- two less for you. You can see more there.

Ted Simons: What about satellite imagery. Can we see what's on the ground?

Absolutely. We were talking about Sun City, Sun City West. You zoom in, you see the streets. I can bring in area and take this transfer. If you start zooming in you can --

Ted Simons: You can almost see your house.

Anubhav Bagley: Very, very close.

Ted Simons: Surrounded by a bunch of folks just like you or not quite like you.

Anubhav Bagley: Absolutely.

Ted Simons: What else you got here? This -- I love maps and I love this stuff.

Anubhav Bagley: This is great. The other piece that we have, is there say you're looking at percent population 18 to 34. Where is the younger working age population? 35 to 49. As you change the maps you'll see the legends changing. This piece where we see these colors, we call it legend what are the different data sources behind it. You get to see. That you can see all kinds of stuff. Say you want to get from a work force development for economic development, education attainment becomes a big thing. Say you're interested in finding out where are the population with a bachelor's degree. What is my educational level on. That you see that piece here this. Is the education levels. The darker blue is 35 to 57. All these areas have to 35-57% of the population bachelor's agree. If you want it look at what is the associate's degree you can look at that. If you want to see household income that's another piece we keep getting asked for. What the median income, then you’ll start seeing different areas light up. Uses of this application from a mapping perspective is for regional planning, long range planning, human services started using it. The real use is economic development perspective.

Ted Simons: Human services. Do you actually have where service agencies or hospitals, churches, schools, are they located on this?

Anubhav Bagley: Not on this particular application. If you have the time I can jump to another one but off our website we have seven live viewers. The look and feel is exactly the same. If you learn to use one you can use all of these. One is called a landmark viewer. That one has all kinds of information. Schools, public libraries, police stations, fire stations. All of that is existing in that. The other piece about this is that this is not just a mapping application. One of the piece you could do with the map, you want to create a map, you decide this is a map, print a map up top. This takes a couple of seconds but this is the map that it will print for you to put in a presentation.

Ted Simons: My goodness.

Anubhav Bagley: The other cool fact is if you have built something this is beyond just mapping, so you want to know more about Phoenix or Tempe, you can click this, see what is going on with Phoenix. That gets you all kinds of charts and data sets. Here's the population by age for Phoenix. What's happening age groups. Race. What's happening on the race side, what's happening on ethnicity. The fact that a large percentage of population in Phoenix is Hispanic. 599,000 or 40.8%.

Ted Simons: Can you get like a little subset of a map and get those pie charts for that subset?

Anubhav Bagley: There's a custom thing here. You decided this is the particular neighborhood you're interested in looking at. You can select this area here and say, that's the area I'm interested in finding out, select that airo for you, give you the charts for that. You see all the charts. The other piece is you get to see a summary report with all the data. You can download the data on Excel. We were getting requests from grant writers, economic development professionals, planners, from member agencies to get all this data. This is available at the click of a button. If you're really a geek like me you see all kinds of data in terms of the data right there.

Ted Simons: Any sensitive information that was left out of this? You know a lot about all of us.

Anubhav Bagley: This is a lot of data, but this is all publicly available data. Census information being updated. It's just that it's not been packaged in a way that one can now look at this right away and start putting stuff together.

Ted Simons: Someone watching says, I need to check out these maps and I want to see what's there, first where do they go?

Anubhav Bagley: They go to our main website, WWW.AZmag.gov. On the top left side there's an interactive maps link. That gets you to the website.

Ted Simons: And once they are there, they can do everything that you have just done here. They can print out, do the pie charts, the whole nine yards.

Anubhav Bagley: They can do everything and more. They can print those reports I showed you. They can print those. You can download those. There are seven viewers. We have an employment viewer. We maintain an employment database of five or more employees at any location. You can look for Tempe or a particular area are the largest employers. How big are they? What are the sectorized employment. Long range planning, that's the data they need.

Ted Simons: You can look at housing values and percent owner occupied as well?

Anubhav Bagley: Yes. You can look at median housing value, gross rent, owner occupied data we do have percent owner occupied and renter occupied from the census. The beauty is this data set as needs come in we have added on because census has a lot more data than just this. We have added in more things and we keep modifying these applications. First version did not have these advanced options. Now we have made this, this is a mobile. This viewer you could use on your mobile device, android or I-pad.

Ted Simons: I was going to ask, last question, do I need a special computer, special software? Can I fire up the IMac and there you go?

Anubhav Bagley: For the demographic viewer, you could just fire it up and it works there are a couple of our viewers that currently need a software called Silver light, freely available publics but you have to download and install it. That is available to you but our plan is slowly we are phrasing those out and they are building new viewers in. My technical team is amazing, they are building those as we speak.

Ted Simons: Anubhav, congratulations. I'm sure it will be developing as time goes on. Great to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us.